When you feel the world is going to hell
Remember hell’s just a story we tell
Just a fear we release into the air
And then pretend to find it there
Like Iranian nukes, Iraq’s WMDs,
Or Manuel Noriega in his evil underwear.
(It’s OK. You had to be there.)
All right, you say, not hell but disaster,
Catastrophe here on earth.
Again, I tell you, a paranoid fantasizer
Centuries ago gave birth
To the notion that stars control our fate.
Dis-Aster. Bad-Star. I suspect
In reality, it was something they ate.
I’m missing the point, you scream.
There’s such a thing as bad results.
There’s such a thing as being too late.
And that is all that you — quite clearly and simply — mean.
And still, I maintain, we’re all living in a dream
Refusing the possibility to see
That the emperor has no sustainability
We’re not so powerless, after all,
AFTER ALL,
Any creatures who can uninvent hell and
Put the stars back in their places
Could — even just a few of them could —
Even just a couple of them should —
Even just your solitary voice would
Start us on a path to save this precious little ball.